Bin Laden Son-in-Law Charged by U.S. in Terrorism Case

By Patricia Hurtado and Terry Atlas -
Mar 8, 2013

Sulaiman Abu Ghayth, a son-in-law of
Osama bin Laden, is set to be the most senior al-Qaeda member to
face a civilian U.S. judge on charges of conspiring to kill
Americans after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Abu Ghayth was captured by U.S. agents after a decade-long
manhunt as he sought to travel from Jordan to Kuwait. Accused in
an indictment of plotting with bin Laden and other members of
al-Qaeda from 1989 until now to kill U.S. nationals, he is to
appear today in federal court in Manhattan.

“It has been 13 years since Abu Ghayth allegedly worked
alongside Osama bin Laden in his campaign of terror and 13 years
since he allegedly took to the public airwaves, exhorting others
to embrace al-Qaeda’s cause and warning of more terrorist
attacks like the mass murder of 9/11,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney
Preet Bharara said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.

“The memory of those attacks is indelibly etched on the
American psyche,” and the indictment “is the latest example of
our commitment to capturing and punishing enemies of the United
States, no matter how long it takes,” Bharara said. Abu Ghayth,
captured by members of the Central Intelligence Agency and
Federal Bureau of Investigation, faces life in prison if
convicted, the government said.

Bin Laden

Abu Ghayth, 47, is viewed as having been among the group’s
most influential surviving leaders since U.S. Navy SEALs killed
bin Laden in May 2011. He’s also the highest-ranking member of
al-Qaeda brought to stand trial in a federal court in the U.S.,
according to the FBI.

Some Republican lawmakers, including Senator Lindsey Graham
of South Carolina and Mike Rogers of Michigan, chairman of the
House intelligence committee, criticized the Obama
administration’s handling of the Abu Ghayth case, saying he
should be tried as an enemy combatant in military tribunal, not
as a criminal defendant in a civilian court.

Prosecutors allege that Abu Ghayth served alongside bin
Laden, appearing with him and bin Laden’s then deputy, Ayman al- Zawahiri, speaking on behalf of the terrorist organization and
in support of its mission. Abu Ghayth swore an oath of
allegiance to bin Laden, called a “bayat,” agreeing to support
violent attacks against U.S. property and citizens, either
military or civilians, prosecutors said in the complaint.

Abu Ghayth, as a spokesman for al-Qaeda, warned that
attacks similar to those of Sept. 11 would continue, the U.S.
said. On Sept. 12, 2001, Abu Ghayth, with bin Laden and Al-
Zawahiri, spoke on behalf of al-Qaeda, warning the U.S.: “A
great army is gathering against you.” He also called upon “the
nation of Islam” to do battle “against the Jews, the
Christians and the Americans,” prosecutors alleged.

‘Airplanes Storm’

He later gave a speech directed at the U.S. secretary of
state, warning that “the storms shall not stop, especially the
airplanes storm,” the U.S. alleged in the indictment. He
advised Muslims, children and opponents of the U.S. “not to
board any aircraft and not to live in high rises.”

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the apprehension
of Abu Ghayth an “important milestone” in counterterrorism
efforts.

“No amount of distance or time will weaken our resolve to
bring America’s enemies to justice,” Holder said.

‘Key Position’

Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI’s New York Field
Office George Venizelos said Abu Ghayth held a “key position in
al-Qaeda, comparable to the consigliere in a mob family or
propaganda minister in a totalitarian regime.”

“He used his position to persuade others to swear loyalty
to al-Qaeda’s murderous cause,” he said in a statement. “He
used his position to threaten the United States and incite its
enemies.”

He managed to smuggle himself from Afghanistan into Iran in
2002, prosecutors said.

This year, Turkish authorities, acting on information from
the CIA, first seized Abu Ghayth at a hotel in Ankara, the
Turkish capital, according to U.S. congressional and
intelligence officials. A Turkish court rejected a U.S. request
for his extradition and released him on the grounds that he
hadn’t been charged with committing any crime in Turkey.

CIA officers located him after he arrived in Ankara with an
Iranian passport and he asked Saudi Arabian diplomats to help
his wife and children go to their country, according to the U.S.
officials, who asked not to be named because intelligence
matters are involved. His wife is a Saudi citizen.

Kuwait, Jordan

Abu Ghayth was seized when he attempted to travel to Kuwait
from Jordan, a country with which the U.S. maintains close ties,
the U.S. officials said.

Kuwait had revoked Abu Ghayth’s citizenship in 2001,
according to the U.S. Treasury Department. Kuwait took the
action after he was seen in video footage defending the Sept. 11
attacks and threatening reprisals for the subsequent American
invasion of Afghanistan.

The decision to charge Abu Ghayth in a federal court in New
York rather than before a military tribunal may reflect that
prosecutors think they have sufficient evidence to imprison him
for life without needing to rely on classified intelligence,
said Michael M. Rosensaft, a former federal prosecutor who’s now
a partner at Katten Muchin Rosenmann LLP, a New York City law
firm.

The Manhattan federal courthouse has been the site of
several high-profile terrorism trials. Juries there convicted a
group of men charged in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and
several followers of bin Laden charged in the 1998 bombings of
the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Islamic Cleric

Abu Hamza al-Masri, an Islamic cleric accused of aiding al-
Qaeda, is scheduled to stand trial next year before U.S.
District Judge Katherine Forrest.

Separately, Khalid al-Fawwaz, a Saudi national, and Adel
Abdel Bary, of Egypt, charged with participating with bin Laden
in a global plot to kill U.S. nationals and attack American
facilities, are scheduled to go on trial in October before U.S.
District Judge Lewis Kaplan.

Plans announced by the Obama administration in 2009 to try
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11
attacks, in federal court in Manhattan were dropped following
opposition from members of Congress, led by Senate Republican
leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Mohammed and four other
accused terrorist plotters are instead being tried by a military
tribunal at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

‘Swift Interrogation’

“I trust he received a vigorous interrogation, and will
face swift and certain justice,” U.S. Representative Peter
King, a New York Republican, said in an e-mailed statement.

Other Republicans criticized the Obama administration for
bringing the case in civilian court.

By “sneaking this guy into the country,” the
administration is “clearly going around the intent of
Congress,” Graham told reporters at a news conference called
before the Justice Department announced Ghayth’s indictment.
Congress has barred the administration from bringing enemy
combatants held at the Navy’s base at Guantanamo Bay to the U.S.

Trying captured suspected terrorists in civilian court
gives them “the same constitutional rights as an American
citizen” and destroys “the ability to hold them under the law
of war for intelligence gathering purposes,” Graham said.

Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire said in a
Twitter comment, “We need to find out everything he knows --not
give him the right to remain silent.”

Rosensaft, who worked in the terrorism and international
narcotics unit of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, said
in a phone interview that the decision on where and how to try
bin Laden’s son-in-law rests on trade-offs among security,
secrecy and rules of evidence, which are tighter under the rules
for military tribunals.

The case is U.S. v. Abu Ghayth, 13-cr-01023, U.S. District
Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).